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Latest 'liveable city' index -- sorry Vancouver, you're gone
US$266k for a hut, and other travel splurges
Angry Birds pad Thai: Enough is enough!
CNN Café opens flagship shop on Seoul's busiest street
Salaryman becomes pizza man, serves up Tokyo's best slices

Latest 'liveable city' index -- sorry Vancouver, you're gone

Posted: 04 Jul 2012 02:08 AM PDT

Neither proud Vancouverites nor Melbourne's residents will be happy about the latest liveability index to have hit the headlines.

Those two cities, which have in recent years jousted for the top spot in the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)'s bi-annual global livability index, didn't feature at all in the latest ranking to be published by the organization.

Instead, Hong Kong took the no. 1 spot, in the study that was compiled by an architect and urban planner, Filippo Lovato, the winner of EIU's competition to come up with a new way of interpreting their data.

EIU, in collaboration with data-sharing company BuzzData, opened their city ranking and cost of living data to the public and invited people to compile a new city index.

Lovato's entry added data on urban planning, including cities' green space, (lack of) sprawl, natural assets, cultural assets, connectivity and (lack of) isolation.

US$266k for a hut, and other travel splurges

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 09:16 PM PDT

by Rachel Sang-hee Han

A humble timber cabin in southern England recently became one of the country's most expensive beach huts when it sold for a whopping £170,000 (US$265,985) last month.

It was on the market for only two days before it was snapped up, despite containing no toilet.

The hut near Bournemouth was rebuilt 10 years ago and has a full kitchen, sleeping accommodation, running water and even solar panels for lighting.

"The location is what got the interest. This one offers views of the harbor from one side and there are views of the sea," Andy Denison from Denisons Estate Agents told the Guardian.

The hut was a popular spot for beach house-searchers, regardless of the price tag.

Angry Birds pad Thai: Enough is enough!

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 09:01 PM PDT

Would you eat this? JM's pad Thai is topped with furious-looking fowl. There's no stopping those crazy Angry Birds.

The stars of the insanely popular video game continue to migrate from electronic screens to the real word, appearing in an ever-widening range of merchandise, attractions and eats.

Not even Thai cuisine is safe from their fury.

Though at this point, with the law of dimishining returns kicking in, we kind of wish it were.

Nevertheless, diners hitting up one of JM Cuisine's two restaurants in the Thai town of Phetchaburi can now order up plates of Angry Birds pad Thai.

CNN Café opens flagship shop on Seoul's busiest street

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 06:26 PM PDT

by CNNGo staff

Entrance from the main street at Gangnam Station Exit 11. CNN Café opened its largest venue yet at Gangnam Station, following expansion into Busan and university campuses in Seoul. The 500-square-meter flagship café is located on the second floor to the right of Exit 11 (formerly Exit 7) of Gangnam Station on the green line, and retains the original concept of offering newswires, study stations and computer terminals, in addition to offering coffee, tea and dessert. Upon our first foray there for the grand opening, we were pleasantly surprised by how good the cake was until we found out that all the baked goods are by gourmet bakery Migo. The café's cookies, jams and chocolates are stocked by artisan chocolatier J.Brown, while the red bean for the bingsu (shaved ice desserts) is all locally grown.

The meeting rooms at CNN Cafe can be reserved in advance. In particular, we recommend the carrot cake (₩4,900), (it's difficult to come by carrot cake in Seoul, let alone a soft, yummy version) and "Cocopa" -- tiny white chocolate truffles (₩2,000). Unlike the jam-packed, rip-roaring gossiping in the coffeeshops characteristic of the area, CNN Café functions more as a book café (substituting news for books) and is quiet and laid-back. "It's seems like a really great place to come and study by yourself," says Kim Hyun-Ko, 26, a religion teacher who came to lead a study group at a corner table. "It's sometimes really awkward to go to a café by yourself, but here it seems like the perfect set-up." More on CNNGo: iReport: Seoul's independent coffee culture CNN International plays on LED screens throughout the café and along one entire wall, and customers can plug in their own earphones or borrow headphones from the café for the accompanying sound. Each station also has a USB outlet for charging phones. CNN Cafe

Hurry to take advantage of the opening promotions. (Photo: Back entrance)Meeting rooms are available for use for groups of seven or more customers and can be reserved in advance. To mark the grand opening, the café is holding a number of promotions. Customers with July birthdays will get a free size upgrade while students of YBM -- one of Korea's largest English education companies -- will receive 20 percent discount if they show their tuition receipt at the time of purchase. Every customer receives a free CNN phone screen cleaner, and the first 200 customers to spend more than ₩10,000 will receive a bright red CNN mug. We'd hurry if we were you. They're super cute. CNN Café is managed by YBM in association with Turner Asia Pacific; Turner and its sister company CNN own and operate CNNGo. 2/F Gangnam-gu, Gangnam daero 408 (서울시 강남구 강남대로 408, 201호); +82 2 557 6674 More on CNNGo: First CNN Café opens in Seoul

Salaryman becomes pizza man, serves up Tokyo's best slices

Posted: 03 Jul 2012 03:00 PM PDT

by Mark Robinson

Chef Yutaka Hazama stands in the meter-wide kitchen of his pizza truck, Bakka, and describes how one year ago he built up the self-confidence, brick by brick, to ditch a secure office job.

He then took those bricks and made them into an experimental wood-fired oven in a friend's garden. Then he started testing fire, hot coals, dough and toppings, until eventually he was satisfied.

"You know how many brands of canned tomatoes there are?" he asks. "Me neither. But I ordered as many as I could off the Internet to try." He mimes tiredly licking his fingers.

Then he took out a hefty loan for the truck and oven, and got cooking ...

It's 10 p.m. Friday night at a vacant block in the seedy, crawling heart of Shibuya.